There are thousands of stories on this web site written by people who have recovered from a wide variety of physical and psychological challenges using EFT. While such anecdotal evidence is valuable in pointing to what EFT can do, rigorous scientific research has been required in order to establish EFT as an "evidence-based" method that can be used with confidence by medical and psychological professionals in primary care.

These EFT research pages summarize the many studies of EFT published in peer-reviewed professional journals. They begin with an overview of the APA (American Psychological Association) definition of "empirically validated treatments," then describe how EFT meets those criteria. Finally, they organize published abstracts into Outcome Studies, Clinical Reports, Mechanisms Papers, and Review Articles. From the links at the top of this page you can jump to any of these sections immediately.

APA Standards for Empirically Validated Treatments

EFT Universe supports the evidence-based standards defined by the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 12 (Clinical Psychology) Task Force ("APA standards" for short). These define an "empirically validated treatment" as one for which there are two different controlled trials conducted by independent research teams.

For a treatment to be designated as "efficacious," the studies must demonstrate that the treatment is better than a wait list, placebo, or established efficacious treatment.

To be designated as "probably efficacious," a treatment must have been shown to be better than a wait list in two studies that meet these criteria, or are conducted by the same research team rather than two independent teams.

The APA standards advocate that studies contain sufficient subjects to achieve a level of statistical significance of p < .05 or greater, which means that there is only one possibility in 20 that the results are due to chance. The current status of EFT as an "evidence-based" practice is summarized in this statement published in the APA journal Review of General Psychology:

"A literature search identified 51 peer-reviewed papers that report or investigate clinical outcomes following the tapping of acupuncture points to address psychological issues. The 18 randomized controlled trials in this sample were critically evaluated for design quality, leading to the conclusion that they consistently demonstrated strong effect sizes and other positive statistical results that far exceed chance after relatively few treatment sessions. Criteria for evidence-based treatments proposed by Division 12 of the American Psychological Association were also applied and found to be met for a number of conditions, including PTSD." (Feinstein, 2012)

The State of EFT Research

The results of all the published studies listed below are statistically significant. Many of them are randomized controlled trials or RCTs, a design generally regarded as the Gold Standard of research. EFT has met the APA standards as an "efficacious" or "probably efficacious" treatment for phobias, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. There are several definitions in the field of medicine (as distinguished from the field of psychology) of what constitutes an "evidence-based" treatment.

One of the most useful comes from the US government's National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP).

It requires a standardized description of the method in the form of a manual and training materials, documentation that the treatment was delivered with fidelity to that method, the use of validated and reliable outcome measures, corrections for dropouts (such as an intent-to-treat analysis), appropriate statistical analysis, sample sizes sufficient to produce a probability of p < .05 or better, and publication in a peer-reviewed professional journal.

EFT has been researched in more than 10 countries, by more than 60 investigators, whose results have been published in more than 20 different peer-reviewed journals. These include distinguished top-tier journals such as Journal of Clinical Psychology, the APA journals Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training and Review of General Psychology, and the oldest psychiatric journal in North America, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

EFT research includes investigators affiliated with many different institutions.

In the US, these range from Harvard Medical School, to the University of California at Berkeley, to City University of New York, to Walter Reed Military Medical Center, to Texas A&M University, to JFK University. Institutions in other countries whose faculty have contributed to EFT research include Staffordshire University (United Kingdom), Lund University (Sweden), Ankara University (Turkey), Santo Tomas University (Philippines), Lister Hospital (England), Cesar Vallejo University (Peru), and Griffith University (Australia).

The wide variety of institutions, peer-reviewed journals, investigators, and settings that have, in independent research, found EFT to be efficacious, are one indication of the breadth of existing research results.

The next frontier of EFT research is replication of the studies that have not yet been replicated, and investigations into the physiological changes that occur during EFT, using such tools as DNA micro-arrays (gene chips), MEGs (magnetoencephalograms), fMRIs, and neurotransmitter and hormone assays.

The EFT Universe training and certification program is based on "Clinical EFT," a consistent and reliable protocol supported by this extensive base of evidence and clinical practice, and in conformity with the APA standards. EFT Universe trainings are accredited for CE/CME for doctors (American Medical Association), nurses (American Nurses Credentialing Commission), psychologists (American Psychological Association), social workers (NASWB) and many other professional organizations.

There are several kinds of research papers listed on these pages. The first is "outcome" research. These studies compare the medical or psychological outcomes of two groups of people with similar symptoms, or the same sample before and after EFT. Outcome studies measure changes in, for instance, pain, depression, or PTSD symptoms.

While an outcome study is designed to answer the research question, "Does this work?" the second kind of paper asks the question, "How does it work?" With EFT having been shown in many outcome studies to work very quickly and reliably for a variety of ailments, researchers have become increasingly interested in the physiological mechanisms of action by which such rapid healing is possible.

So the second category of paper you will find here is mechanisms papers. The third category of paper is the "clinical report." Rather than using validated numerical instruments to assess outcomes, clinical reports describe the use of EFT with special groups, such as people with epilepsy, veterans, children, refugees, or prisoners. They may present a single case.

Finally, there are "review papers." These gather together all the published evidence about a topic, present it in a structured manner, and evaluate that body of knowledge.

There is also a section listing papers written by skeptics and opponents of EFT. Despite a large and consistent evidence base, there are many professionals who remain unconvinced, some of whom actively campaign against the use of EFT or further research into EFT. You can make up your own mind after reading the arguments before and against.

How the EFT Research Pages are Organized

For convenience, and to organize the large number of studies referenced on this site, outcome studies are presented first, by the condition for which data was collected, e.g. Depression, Pain, etc. The titles of studies are listed below the heading. If you click on a title, you jump to the paper's abstract, and if available, the full text of the paper, or a location online where you can obtain it.

A study in which the primary outcome was PTSD symptoms might have also collected data on secondary outcomes such as pain. If so, the study will appear under both headings, with the reference for the secondary outcome marked (S). The abstract tells you the treatment protocol, number of subjects, assessments used, change in symptoms, and statistical significance. Below outcome studies, clinical reports, mechanisms papers, and review articles are listed.

All the studies listed on this page have been published in peer-reviewed professional journals, or submitted for publication after being presented at professional conferences, with a few exceptions. These studies are listed at the bottom of the page under "Informal or Unpublished Research."

These are listed in a separate section at the bottom of the page, since they have not met the rigorous standards inherent in peer review, in which committees of reviewers, usually professors, doctors, psychologists, and statisticians, examine every statement and statistic in a study to make sure that it is correct and credible, and meets the prevailing standards of evidence-based research prior to publication.

Many of these studies have been performed by a team of dedicated volunteers at the National Institute for Integrative Healthcare. A great need exists for money and expertise to perform the next level of research on EFT, to pay for genetic tests, lab assays, and data analysis.

Outcome studies compare outcomes, e.g. levels of pain, degree of depressive symptoms, either between two groups, or between the same people before and after EFT. The headings below tell you, in alphabetical order, the conditions for which data was gathered in the trials below them.

Clinical Reports describe the use of EFT with various groups, e.g. university students, prisoners, refugees, or abused children. They may contain quantitative data, e.g. scores on symptom assessments, or they may describe the ways in which practitioners can work with this population.

The "mechanisms of action" for a technique such as EFT describe what is happening in the body during application of the technique. These papers describe the neurological, epigenetic, psychoneuroimmunological, and hormonal pathways that are believed to be active during EFT sessions.

Review articles gather all the evidence for a method, such as EFT, or a condition, such as phobias, PTSD, or pain. They review the studies that have been completed, and draw general conclusions about the characteristics of the method. A number of review articles of EFT and/or Energy Psychology have been published in peer-reviewed journals in recent years:

There are many professionals who reject EFT categorically and sometimes vehemently; one prominent opponent calls EFT and similar methods “possible threats to the science of psychiatry and psychology” (Devilly, 2005). Skeptics and opponents discount the above research and argue that the effects of EFT are due to placebo, the nonspecific gains found in any form of therapy, and other factors.

The Wikipedia entry for EFT and most other forms of non-drug therapy are tightly controlled by a group of skeptics who state that these methods possess the characteristics of “pseudoscience.” These Wikipedia editors feature newspaper reports, opinion pieces and review articles attacking the method in the entry for EFT, but censor the posting of any of the more than 100 outcome studies, randomized controlled trials, meta-analyses, and review papers supporting the method.

The opposition to EFT is understandable. Any new therapy faces an uphill journey to acceptance, since research funding goes to established methods, while a large body of existing professionals are trained in and familiar with these methods. EFTs combination of Western psychotherapy and acupuncture is controversial. Below is a selection of articles published in peer-reviewed journals that criticize EFT. You can decide on their merits for yourself.

These studies have been presented at professional conferences, or informally presented such as in books. They have not been peer reviewed and are thus not to be relied on for the empirical rigor that the review process brings. They should be regarded as suggestive only.

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